I can say, without any data to back my opinon up, that I believe they are charging more than their current profit margin of 20.05%, on this product and feel that the odds of me being correct are high.

Apple has done this on several products in the past. Initial release is priced high, then later at some point, they drop the price and are still able to maintain a high margin. nothing wrong with this, just making a statement.

1) An up charge, in your context, is a very specific kind of increased charge, not any charge.

noun
North American
a charge or payment that is additional to the usual or basic price; a surcharge:

2) Companies typically have higher profit margins on BTO options for two reason: it lets them start their base price lower than otherwise would be possible to maintain a profit margin for a product and BTO options typically have much lower unit sales which can raise the cost per unit in sourcing with its lower the economics of scale.

3) People usually complain that Apple hasn't reduced their prices when Intel drops CPU prices or when a product is considered EOL but you're stating (and complaining) that Apple reduces prices later on. Give me an example.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

So I am not complaining "that Apple reduces prices later on". I am stating a fact. Apple has dropped the price on the iPhone when it originally came out, that caused a big stir and they dropped the price on the MacBok Airs shortly after they were introduced and they dropped the price (eventually) on the 30" monitor they EOL'd awhile ago. They don't do it often but they do it. I did a quick search and pulled nothing up, but I do remember these occurrences. Maybe someone can "check" or "hold" this for me.

The iPhone price dropped but that's not some sinister plan by Apple to screw the customer, that's Apple not gauging the market properly. It's really that simple!

The MBA did not drop in shortly after it was introduced. In fact, the first update to it introduced a new, higher-priced option. It wasn't until the next update that prices dropped but that's because of changes in components. Remember how Apple had to get Intel to dust off their shelves plans for the SFF (Small Form Factor) CULV (Core Ultra-Low Voltage) processors? You don't think that costs money?

Seriously? The 30' ACD finally dropping in price long after the cost of the HW has dropped is exactly the type of thing I referred to. They let that linger at the higher price when you could get a quality, factor-calibrated monitor for much lower with the same panel and equivalent HW, save for the case. This is what I mean by people complained about that. At least if you had mean that I could understand your complaint even though it's still foolish because you still have the right not to buy it.

But none of this goes with the point you're trying to make because the first example would be Apple making less per unit and the others because go component prices dropping significantly, not some magic where they can drop a price with no change to the product costs and have the profit margin stay the same.Edited by SolipsismX - 12/19/13 at 12:27pm

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

So I am sensing a very adversarial tone from you. Is that intentional?

I disagree with what I think is a flawed comment and I commented to that point so, yeah, I am your adversary by definition.

Quote:

The question you asked me was to give you examples of price drops. I did that. It did happen. This isn't tied to anything other than supporting my comment and you asked for examples. […] I am also not even thinking that the iPhone price drop is a "sinister plan by Apple to screw the customer". Where are you pulling that out of?

Perhaps I'm mistaken but I could have sworn you said Apple was price gouging. That has a very specific meaning in law.

What you said that initialed my queries was, "Initial release is priced high, then later at some point, they drop the price and are still able to maintain a high margin." You're examples were talking about different SKUs, a very overdue drop of a stagnated product, and a bad initial price point by Apple. None of those jive with how I read your preceding comments. To me your comments in no way were referring to the examples you presented.

Quote:

I just wish it was cheaper. And yes, I do think they could make it cheaper.

That's not the comment you started off with. I not only want it cheaper, I want Apple to pay me to use one. Is that a valid desire? Of course. Is it reasonable? Of course not.

Of course they could make it cheaper. They could make it as cheap as the Mac mini but they choose not to relabel the Mac mini as Mac Pro so that's what you get. But you're not asking them to just label something else that uses lesser components, you want this machine but for less money than what they are asking without considering the cost that goes into it. You said you didn't source any of the components so I bet even if this came in $1999 you would have complained it's too much simply because you would be certain Apple would be making a gouging profit that is higher than you'd like.Edited by SolipsismX - 12/19/13 at 1:08pm

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

I'm having a severe problem with Appleinsider, and have been for a few days on my iPad Air. Safari keeps crashing. Sometimes it happens when I'm doing nothing, after 30 seconds, or so. Other times when I touch something, or when writing a post. Just totally random. Sometimes typing is so slow that the characters appear more than a second after typing. Back to 1975!

Not happening anywhere else.

Am I the only one?

Nope, same here. Although at last Safari on the Mac has stopped crashing when on AI.

From Apple ][ - to new Mac Pro I've owned them all.Long on AAPL so biased"Google doesn't sell you anything, Google just sells you!"

3) "Have you compared the costs of the just the CPUs and GPUs between the new and old Mac Pros?" No I haven't, have you? I am sure they are expensive but are they expensive enough to justify the total cost of the machine? That is the whole point of my inital comments and I don't think they are. I think the system could be overall cheaper and that the company could still meet their profit margin. I also believe that if it was cheaper then they would sell more faster and reach the economy of scale quicker, just in time to do a refresh no doubt.

[/quote]

If it's ok, I'd like to address this one issue. Previously, Mac Pro's came with one consumer graphics card. Not the highest model, but whatever was right below. So, talking several hundred bucks worth. Now, it comes with two pro cards.

Here's an analysis of the cards by Architosh. This is an early analysis, and card prices have risen, but it does give a very good idea of what's going on here.

What are you, 12? Big e-bully is going to verbally taunt me. OOOHHHHHH. Your not an adversary, you just get your feelings hurt easy, like a girl.

Your wording is very emotional and your replies here insinuating I'm a 12yo girl are further proof of that. I, as well as others, pointed out the flaws in your logic and you didn't take it well. This isn't Endgaget so hyperbolic, sensationalist comments aren't going to be received well.

Yes, I am your adversary just as you are mine as is everything else that has an opponent regardless of what it may be. I am your teacher and you are mine, but you still need to make the effort to actually learn. I have many friends on this forum whom I appreciate for being excellent adversaries. My sig should tell you that much.

Quote:

I did say that, I retract it. I should have taken the time to word what I was trying to convey differently.

Just now you retract it? Yes, you need to word things better in order to prevent your emotional writing to back you into your corners that make you lash out at others instead of trying to form a rational reply.

I know you're actually capable of making better responses even if you haven't done so in this thread. I can see evidence of it your aspects of your writing but you need to work on it. If you don't like being called out for making foolish comments then stop making them because this forum likes well researched and reasoned responses. You write to make a point so why not make that point be worth something by something effort into it?Edited by SolipsismX - 12/19/13 at 2:03pm

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

I disagree with what I think is a flawed comment and I commented to that point so, yeah, I am your adversary by definition.
Perhaps I'm mistaken but I could have sworn you said Apple was price gouging. That has a very specific meaning in law.

What you said that initialed my queries was, "Initial release is priced high, then later at some point, they drop the price and are still able to maintain a high margin." You're examples were talking about different SKUs, a very overdue drop of a stagnated product, and a bad initial price point by Apple. None of those jive with how I read your preceding comments. To me your comments in no way were referring to the examples you presented.
That's not the comment you started off with. I not only want it cheaper, I want Apple to pay me to use one. Is that a valid desire? Of course. Is it reasonable? Of course not.

Of course they could make it cheaper. They could make it as cheap as the Mac mini but they choose not to relabel the Mac mini as Mac Pro so that's what you get. But you're not asking them to just label something else that uses lesser components, you want this machine but for less money than what they are asking without considering the cost that goes into it. You said you didn't source any of the components so I bet even if this came in $1999 you would have complained it's too much simply because you would be certain Apple would be making a gouging profit that is higher than you'd like.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

That Apple isn’t charging. Hence no upcharge.

I can say, without any data to back my facts up, that you’re completely and utterly wrong, and, as previously stated, don’t understand the first thing about what’s being done here.

An incorrect statement based on no knowledge of the subject whatsoever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bfulda

What are you, 12? Big e-bully is going to verbally taunt me. OOOHHHHHH. Your not an adversary, you just get your feelings hurt easy, like a girl.

I did say that, I retract it. I should have taken the time to word what I was trying to convey differently.

You need to lay off the red bull. You have me confused with someone else. Take the time to actually look at the name on the post. It will save you some embarrassment.

I quoted my inital comments for you. The first words were, "I just wish it was cheaper" so what? the rest of your quote was inferred by you.

No, they couldn't make it as cheap as a mac mini.
I do want this machine for less money, it was a 'wish', You got more going on with yourself than what is going on here. You need a vacation or you have the xmas blues, your wound too tight, breath a little bit..
And again NO, if the new MP cost $1999 I would not be wishing for one, It would be ordered.

You are taking my comments way too seriously. And your being an ass. This is EOD with you.

Ok, it's enough already! Bfulda, one more girlie or ass mention, and you're out of here. No more warnings!

People need to be able to argue without falling back on insults like that. If a strong disagreement is too much for someone, then drop out of the argument! I don't want to have to kick someone out.

I went for a few weeks where I could actually produce a crash on AI at will on the Mac. All I had to do was edit a post and bang Safari crashed totally. Then a week or so later it still crashed but (and I am on an SSD) after it crashed then retuned to where I'd been in a blink of an eye. There have been so many developer updates I quite honestly am not sure if AI fixed something or Apple did but given only AI crashed you have to wonder! I rarely use the iPad for AI as I only have a mark 2 version and it's a dog on AI. Again I don't notice this so much on other sites.

From Apple ][ - to new Mac Pro I've owned them all.Long on AAPL so biased"Google doesn't sell you anything, Google just sells you!"

Same to you man and welcome to AI. It is a different kind of blog, a very good one and many of us have been here for many years. Just so you know, Soli is one of the elders here we all look up to, his posts are far more than it seems ... he starts over at 10,000 usually (hint, Soli you have gone over already ...I am nearly there!)

From Apple ][ - to new Mac Pro I've owned them all.Long on AAPL so biased"Google doesn't sell you anything, Google just sells you!"

Our friends down under need to stop complaining about Apple and start looking for a new government.

They just got a new government, and the new government is dredging the great barrier reef out of the way so that they can export more coal. I think that they were better off with high apple prices, tbh.

My father in law donated $300k to get the new government in, which is weird from a US perspective where we are so limited on political donations. Canada and Australia are more right wing than the US in certain ways.

They just got a new government, and the new government is dredging the great barrier reef out of the way so that they can export more coal. I think that they were better off with high apple prices, tbh.

My father in law donated $300k to get the new government in, which is weird from a US perspective where we are so limited on political donations. Canada and Australia are more right wing than the US in certain ways.

Talking of the new government in Oz, I read somewhere the first department to be 'let go' was the one on climate change research ... I guess dear ol' Rupert is involved? This totally said from a pro science view point, not political at all ... nope not one bit.

From Apple ][ - to new Mac Pro I've owned them all.Long on AAPL so biased"Google doesn't sell you anything, Google just sells you!"

The new Mac Pro really is the future of Workstations. Just like 2 years after the iPhone came out, all phones looked like the iPhone, same will happen with this workstation.

The reason is, OpenCL is not a gimmick limited to a few specialised apps any more, it is the future of performance computing. CPUs have been getting what, 10-15% faster with each new generation, but when I run programs on my GPU (provided it's a data parallel task, which is a lot of tasks if you model it right) it is 1000x faster (and I mean that literally not hyperbolically).

Currently I develop my OpenCL solns on my Mac with it's Nvidia 650M and then port them to my Linux compute box where I leave them running for days on end. It has dual AMD GPUs. In theory the Mac Pro should be able to take it's place. But the best the Mac Pro has is D700s which is the equivalent (I believe) of dual HD 7970 consumer cards, which is what my "slow" compute box has. My fast compute box has already been upgraded to dual R9 290x's in the last few weeks.

But it depends: Apple always take a whole-of-system approach, so I suspect they would have spent a long time optimising OS X OpenCL drivers, ready for release at the same time as this box, so I'll definitely be looking with interest.

Actually the D700's are equivalent to the FirePro GL W9000 card from AMD. There fastest FirePro. Both the W9000 and the D700's have 6 GB DDR5, and 264GB bandwidth. So I would say there the same GPU. But unlike the consumer HD 7970, the FirePro has EEC error correcting memory which guarantees computational accuracy. Consumer cards do not. Workstation class cards do. But there is a slight performance hit because of the EEC Memory.

My mistake, I should have written that 'the U.S. store doesn't quote the taxes', they are certainly collected in accordance with local laws. The Australian price includes a goods and services tax (GST) at the rate of 10% in the displayed price. Have I got that correct now?

Melgross pointed out the cost of those GPUs elsewhere but I just price checked that 4K display Apple is offering for $3,595. Sharp's website lists 5 different online stores selling that model. Four of the 5 list $3,949 and the last one, PC Connection, listing the same price as Apple. I wonder if PC Connection price matched today, vice versa, or if it's just a coincidence. Either way, Apple and PC Connection seem like the best way to get this display today.

What the new Mac Pro needs is a flat and wide Thunderbolt expansion chassis, designed to sit underneath the MacPro, so that it looks like the Cray-1 (How appropriate, given its number crunching capabilities) !

A Thunderbolt connector underneath the MacPro to invisibly dock with the expansion chassie would come in handy.
Such an expansion chassis would have room for an indeterminate number of expansion HDs, optical drives, even expansion cards.
Also a drawer for tucking away unused connectors, cables, and other small stuff, could be an option (e.g., for $29.99, or $199:) -- make that Eur29.99 or Eur199 including the overseas markup for Europe's Apple Stores), exactly as the service drawers in the bottom of the Cray-1.Edited by VanFruniken - 12/20/13 at 5:46am

I'm having a severe problem with Appleinsider, and have been for a few days on my iPad Air. Safari keeps crashing. Sometimes it happens when I'm doing nothing, after 30 seconds, or so. Other times when I touch something, or when writing a post. Just totally random. Sometimes typing is so slow that the characters appear more than a second after typing. Back to 1975!

Not happening anywhere else.

Am I the only one?

Same here. For quite some time now. Can only post from my desktop. Or copy paste from Notes or something. And even then, crashes on occasion, for no apparent reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bfulda

It really is not a badge of honor to have 13000+ posts under your belt if your job is to just monitor the boards.

He's not a moderator but a respected poster, just like many moderators here. This can go hand in hand.

I'm having a severe problem with Appleinsider, and have been for a few days on my iPad Air. Safari keeps crashing. Sometimes it happens when I'm doing nothing, after 30 seconds, or so. Other times when I touch something, or when writing a post. Just totally random. Sometimes typing is so slow that the characters appear more than a second after typing. Back to 1975!

Not happening anywhere else.

Am I the only one?

Same here. For quite some time now. Can only post from my desktop. Or copy paste from Notes or something. And even then, crashes on occasion, for no apparent reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bfulda

It really is not a badge of honor to have 13000+ posts under your belt if your job is to just monitor the boards.

He's not a moderator but a respected poster, just like many moderators here. This can go hand in hand.

I had the same problem... I was able to bypass it by turning off Safari JavaScript. It disappeared as suddenly as it appeared -- now works as expected.

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

I went for a few weeks where I could actually produce a crash on AI at will on the Mac. All I had to do was edit a post and bang Safari crashed totally. Then a week or so later it still crashed but (and I am on an SSD) after it crashed then retuned to where I'd been in a blink of an eye. There have been so many developer updates I quite honestly am not sure if AI fixed something or Apple did but given only AI crashed you have to wonder! I rarely use the iPad for AI as I only have a mark 2 version and it's a dog on AI. Again I don't notice this so much on other sites.

I'm using the Air now, and it's fast indeed. In fact, even the crashes are faster! Almost all my posting is done an iPad.

What the new Mac Pro needs is a flat and wide Thunderbolt expansion chassis, designed to sit underneath the MacPro, so that it looks like the Cray-1 (How appropriate, given its number crunching capabilities) !

A Thunderbolt connector underneath the MacPro to invisibly dock with the expansion chassie would come in handy.
Such an expansion chassis would have room for an indeterminate number of expansion HDs, optical drives, even expansion cards.
Also a drawer for tucking away unused connectors, cables, and other small stuff, could be an option (e.g., for $29.99, or $199:) -- make that Eur29.99 or Eur199 including the overseas markup for Europe's Apple Stores), exactly as the service drawers in the bottom of the Cray-1.

I've been thinking the same thing. I was considering making one up in my machine shop, but as I'm not getting the new Mac Pro this year, I decided to wait.

I had the same problem... I was able to bypass it by turning off Safari JavaScript. It disappeared as suddenly as it appeared -- now works as expected.

Yeah, I thought it might be JavaScript.

What are you missing with it turned off. I hate to do that for just one site, even if it's one of my favorites, obviously.

Dick; thanks. Don't have any more crashes here on AI.

Melgross:

1) I don't seem to be missing anything with Java off, you might just want to try it.

2) Posting solely from an iPad is quite a challenge for me; I find the edit window too small to edit out a quote. Doing it in portrait orientation doesn't help. Never mind trying this on an iPhone - to me completely useless. So I usually post from the desktop.

I had the same problem... I was able to bypass it by turning off Safari JavaScript. It disappeared as suddenly as it appeared -- now works as expected.

Yeah, I thought it might be JavaScript.

What are you missing with it turned off. I hate to do that for just one site, even if it's one of my favorites, obviously.

Dick; thanks. Don't have any more crashes here on AI.

Melgross:
U
1) I don't seem to be missing anything with Java off, you might just want to try it.

2) Posting solely from an iPad is quite a challenge for me; I find the edit window too small to edit out a quote. Doing it in portrait orientation doesn't help. Never mind trying this on an iPhone - to me completely useless. So I usually post from the desktop.

Cheers.

Mmmm.... I do a lot of posts from my iPad 4. I always use landscape mode… And do a lot of dictation. I am pretty happy with how everything works.

Kate/dictated from my iPad.

Ha! I dictated that last... *Typed/dictated

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -